Seascape
by Outoftheloop
Summary: A guy moves into a new town and immediately becomes the mayor of said town.
1. Chapter 1

\- A bit of a warning: This is a self-insert story, sorry if you don't like that, but I thought it wouldn't be that bad in the Animal Crossing series, since the main character is supposed to be you. I hope you do enjoy the story if you do decide to read it. Also I changed my name for safety reasons. -

Chapter 1: The train ride.

It was a warm August morning, I gave my family a goodbye hug right before I boarded the train and my Dad made me promise to keep in touch with them. After I boarded the train, I put my suitcase in the luggage holder and found my seat, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small pamphlet that detailed the town that I was moving to. It was a small coastal town up north called Seascape. Seascape described itself as a, "Small, relaxed, coastal village with: fresh fruit, beautiful ocean views and friendly neighbors." along with some nicely taken photos of a beach, a museum and the town hall. I was a bit skeptical about the pamphlets claims though, a lot of towns, cities and travel destinations highlight their nicest features and then leave out any inconvenience, whether the tourists or people moving know about them or not. I did hope that Seascape would be better than my hometown, even if my family lived back there, it was three abandoned houses away from becoming a slum. I still had a long train ride to go, so I decided to see if I could sleep for most of my eight-hour train ride.

I woke up when the train shook me as it came to a stop, I looked at my watch and realized that I slept for about six and a half hours, I wasn't tired at all, so I stayed up for the rest of the ride. Since the train was stopped, I decided to take a look outside to see who was getting off and getting on the train. I noticed a blue and white cat, wearing a checkered vest and carrying a large hiking backpack standing in line to get on the train and then, almost as if he knew he was being watched, he made eye-contact with me. Instead of frowning at me, like most people would have done, he waved at me and gave a friendly smile, I waved and smiled back, out of courtesy and then quickly looked down at the floor with a feeling of embarrassment and awkwardness. After staring into space for a few minutes trying to forget my most recent awkward moment, I felt someone tap my shoulder, I looked up and it was the cat that waved at me.

"Hi, I noticed that you were looking at me earlier. Was there something on my face?" he asked in a friendly manner.

"Um, no." I replied feeling even more awkward. "I was just looking out the window and I guess we both looked in each others direction at the same time. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you if I did." I apologized, feeling like I wanted to smash my head through the window out of sheer embarrassment.

The cat chuckled and said, "No harm done, don't worry about it." He then stuck out his right hand for a proper greeting, "My name's Rover, it's nice to meet you." he said.

I reached out and shook his hand, "My name's Robert, it's nice to meet you too." I replied while giving a small smile. I try to keep my smiles from getting too big, as babies have been known to cry when I smile.

Rover let go of my hand and asked, "Do you mind if I sit next to you? I won't be a bother, I promise." I looked around the train car and spotted at least five empty seats, even the seat right in front of me was empty, but I guess Rover wanted some company on his train ride.

"Sure, take a seat." I said while still keeping a small smile. Rover then gave another big friendly smile and put his backpack on the luggage holder above the seat, then sat down next to me and said, "Thanks! Like I said, I won't be a bother."

We sat in silence for a little while, then we heard the train blow its whistle a few times as it started to move forward. Since I still had an more than an hour to go, I thought it would be a good idea to pass the time by talking to Rover. "Excuse me Rover, can I ask you a question?" I asked.

Rover turned to me and said, "Sure. What's your question?"

I asked him, "So, where are you going?"

Rover looked past me outside the window, I think he needed a moment to think about my question. After a brief moment, he looked back to me and said, "Anywhere, I guess. I do a lot of traveling, who knows, I might be going to the same place you're going. Uh, where are you going? If you don't mind my asking."

I handed Rover my pamphlet and said, "I'm moving to a small town called Seascape, here, look at that." Rover looked over the pamphlet briefly and then looked back to me.

"Seascape? Hmm, never been there and I haven't heard of it either. Why are you moving there?", he asked.

When Rover asked that question, I sort of paused for a moment, I knew that I had to move, my Dad insisted that I be on my own for at least a year. But I don't know why I picked Seascape over any other place. I thought about it for a few more seconds, then I said to Rover, "I guess because it looks like a nice place to live." I know that it wasn't the best answer I could give, but I thought it would be better than saying, "I don't know." At least he didn't ask me if I had been to Seascape before, which I haven't. Rover seemed to know that I just picked my destination on a whim, I guess my moments pause gave it away.

"This the first time that you're on your own, right?" he said. I was sort of surprised that he managed to get it right on the first guess, but I guess I was never very good at making excuses.

"Yeah." I said, "This is the first time I'm going to be living on my own." I turned my head to face the window, feeling a little unsure if I was going to handle living on my own. I have been left on my own to take care of the house while my family went out on trips, but that was only ever for a few days at a time, this was completely new to me.

Rover then gave me a pat on the back and said, "Don't worry Robert, I'm sure you'll be able to take care of yourself just fine." That felt reassuring, even if he said it just to cheer me up.

I turned to Rover and said, "Thanks, I appreciate that." For the remainder of my train ride, Rover and I talked about where he had been during his travels, since from the size of his backpack, it looks like he's been everywhere. We felt the train slow down to stop, the a voice over the intercom said that we have arrived at Seascape. "Looks like this is my stop, thanks for the company Rover." I said to him as I got out of my seat and took my suitcase from the luggage holder.

Rover reached out his hand for a goodbye shake, to which I obliged. While we shook hands, Rover said, "Good luck on your own and thanks for the company as well." I let go of his hand and made my way to the exit of the train.

\- Thank you for reading my story. Please leave a review if you'd like to. -


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: I'm the mayor?

I stepped out of the train and into the train station of Seascape, the station was completely empty, save for myself and a monkey right next to the ticket gate. The train door closed behind me and I looked back as the whistle blew. As the train slowly started forward, I looked at the window where my seat was and I saw Rover waving at me, I waved back to him as the train picked up speed and I lost sight of Rover. I turned around and headed towards the ticket gate, where I was greeted by the monkey. "Greetings sir, and welcome to Seascape. Would you like a map of our fine town?" he said. Since it was my first time in Seascape, I figured a map would be very helpful for a newcomer like me.

"Yes, I would like a map." I said and the monkey then reached into the pocket on his coat and pulled out a map, he then handed me the map, which I put in my pocket and the monkey then said,

"Will there be anything else?" I did want to ask him why the train station was so empty, but I remembered that the pamphlet for this town, which I don't think Rover gave back, said that Seascape was small, small enough to go unnoticed by most of the world from the looks of it. "No," I said, "that should be it." The monkey then opened the ticket gate and said, "Welcome to Seascape." once more.

As I stepped through the ticket gate and made my way to the exit, I saw some figures standing outside near the train station. I figured that these were some of my new neighbors, but as soon as I stepped outside, I was blasted in the face with confetti as I heard the small group shout, "Welcome Mr. Mayor!" I wiped the confetti off of my face and then I finally had a chance to look at who was there. I saw an orange squirrel, a brown bear, a yellow duck, and a yellow dog.

The dog, a shih tzu to be specific, came up to me and said, "Mayor, it's so great to see that you made it Seascape." I was obviously confused, I had not even been in this town for five minutes and these people had already declared me their mayor? I had to try to talk some sense into them.

"Um, I think you've made a mistake, I'm pretty sure I'm not your mayor, sorry for the mix-up." I said in a polite manner.

The shih tzu had a confused look on her face, then shrugged it off, replacing it with a smile as she said, "Oh don't be silly, of course you're the mayor. Our previous mayor said his replacement would arrive by train today. I've waited a long time for a train to stop here, they don't make stops here very often, so you must be the new mayor."

That wasn't the most sound logic to me and I tried to prove that to her by saying, "What if more than one person got off the train? What if more than one train made a stop here?" As soon as I ask her those questions, I saw a little twitch of irritation on her face and the other three huddled together and started mumbling to the each other, they were probably talking about what I had just said.

The shih tzu quickly put a smile back on her face and said loudly, "Oh, you're such a jokester for someone who is also a mayor! Such a far cry from the usual politicians and capitalists, at least that's how mayors are on television are portrayed." She then gave out a short laugh and the others chuckled along with her.

After she finished laughing, she then said, "Well, we should really continue this at the town hall so we can get your paperwork settled, I'll show you the way there. My name's Isabelle by the way, I was the secretary to the old mayor, so I'll be your secretary as well." I was going to deny any claim to being mayor again, but before I could say anything, Isabelle grabbed me by my wrist and started pulling me towards the town hall, as the others just waved goodbye and went back to their normal day.

While Isabelle was pulling me to my reluctant new job, I looked around town to see what Seascape was like, there were a lot of trees, some had pears growing on them. I also saw some houses in the distance, at least more than four, so at least this town wasn't completely unpopulated. We passed by a pink store next to a small pond and one more house facing a river, before arriving at town hall. As soon as we entered the building, Isabelle finally let go of my wrist, which felt like she had a vice grip on it by the way.

I put my suitcase on the the floor and started to massage my wrist to ease the pain. Isabelle looked at my wrist and realized what she had done, "I'm sorry," she apologized, "do you want an ice-pack for that?" she then asked.

"No, I should be alright." I said. Isabelle then let out a sigh of relief, but then she looked down to the floor and let out a sigh of sadness as well. Not wanting to be rude by ignoring her, I asked, "What's wrong?" Isabelle then looked back up at me and said,

"Look, I'm sorry that I did what I just did back at the train station, but when I said that, 'the old mayor's replacement would arrive today', he was actually supposed to show up two weeks ago. But no one in town knows that, because I kept changing the subject whenever someone asked when the new mayor would show up."

I had a confused look on my face and asked, "What happened to the guy who was supposed to be the mayor then?" Isabelle looked a bit angry when I mentioned whoever the replacement was.

She then took a seat at her desk, breathed in heavily, I suppose to calm down and then said, "He found a different job somewhere else. I don't know where, but the day before he was supposed to show up for his job, he e-mailed a letter explaining that he found a new job and attached his letter of resignation to it. I didn't even know you could resign before you even started the job."

Isabelle was still a bit angry about the whole thing and a little sad too from the look she had on her face. I felt like I should have said something, but before I could say anything, Isabelle said, "I tried to look for a new mayor in a more reasonable way, but I haven't found anyone who would want to be in charge of a town this small. But this town needs someone in charge and everyone thinks you're going to be it. So please, will you be the mayor?"

I gave it some thought for a little while and I remembered that if I was going to be living on my own, I would need to get a job and even though I wasn't the best choice for this job, it was offered to me, but I've never been in a leadership position before, so I was still a little cautious about it.

"Okay, I'll be the mayor." I said in a reluctant way. Ignoring the tone I gave, Isabelle sprang up from her seat with a big smile on her face, grabbed my hand for a handshake and then pulled me in for a hug, it was a bit awkward with the desk in the way.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you! I had no idea what I was going to do if you said no." she said while still hugging me.

I then said, "Is there some paperwork or application that I need to fill out? I know that there's more to being a mayor than just saying that you are one."

I heard Isabelle say, "Oh, right." she then let go of me and sat down to use her computer. She brought up an application paper on the computer screen and said, "I've already filled out the usual details to make it as easy as possible. I just need your personal information; your birthday, address and name, other than that, there shouldn't be…" Isabelle then stopped talking, froze and had a blank look on her face. I tried to get her attention by waving my hand in front of her and when that didn't work, I tried speaking to her.

"Isabelle? Is something wrong?" I said in a worried tone. Isabelle then snapped back to reality and said,

"Sorry about that. It's just I was so excited to have a new mayor, I just realized that, not only did I get a complete stranger to be the mayor, I don't even know your name and I'm pretty sure you don't have a place to live yet." I knew that I didn't have a place to call home yet, but that wouldn't have been a problem for long, there had to be a few houses up for sale in town. I gave Isabelle my personal information and the only blank space left on the application, was the address box.

Isabelle said with a smile on her face, "Alright, all we need your address, you can head over to Nook's Homes on Main Street to get your new home and address." I pulled out the map from my pocket and looked at the side that said Main Street, there was a small house with a leaf on, I figured that was Nook's Homes. I put the map away and said, "Okay, I'll head over there to get things settled right now." and headed for the door.

As I reached for the doorknob, I heard Isabelle say, "Wait!" I turned around to face her and she said in shy manner, "Can I come with you? I can show the way and I can get your address right when you get it too, so we can save time." she then lowered her head and twiddled her thumbs, waiting for an answer.

"Sure." I replied and she looked back with a big smile and I also got the feeling smiling was also her plain face.

Isabelle then got up from her desk and quickly walked up to me and said, "Let's go!", in a cheerful way.

\- Thanks for reading this chapter. Please leave a review if you'd like. -


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Getting a house.

I followed Isabelle to Main Street, it was past the train station and up a few steps. Main Street was not very impressive, most of the street's buildings were made out of bricks or wood, but some of them were abandoned and there was a small shack near the middle of the street with a sign that read, "Nookling's Junction," as if someone actually ran a business out of the shack. I later found out that was the case.

"This way Robert, we're almost there." Isabelle said, as she lead me to a tall blue brick building with a sign that read, "Nook's Homes." We entered the building and there were several photos and display models of different styled houses and exterior decorations, like doors, fences, and mailboxes. In the far left corner of the building there was a corner office with big windows blocked by shutters, there was also a spiral staircase next to the office as well. It did not look like anyone was there aside from Isabelle and I, so I asked her,

"Is anyone here?" Isabelle then glanced around and said, "Mr. Nook is probably in his office, or upstairs in his apartment, I'll call for him." She then pulled a rope next to a sign by the front door, the sign read, "Pull for service." A few seconds later the office door opened and a portly brown raccoon stepped out and walked towards us.

Mr. Nook came to a stop in front of us and said, "Isabelle, it's nice to see you today, yes." he then took notice of me and asked Isabelle, "And who is this young gentleman with you?" Isabelle then responded with,

"This is our new mayor, Robert, he just arrived in town today, so he needs a house."

I stepped forward and stuck out my hand for a handshake and said, "It's nice to meet you Mr. Nook."

He then shook my hand and said, "Yes, it's a pleasure to meet you as well," he then let go of my hand and said, "but please, call me Tom, that goes for you too Isabelle."

Isabelle then smiled and said, "Alright, but I won't make any promises, Mr. Nook." She then let out a small laugh.

Tom then looked at Isabelle with a bit of an annoyed look on his face, but she just had an innocent smile on hers. Tom then went back to a plain face, then looked back at me and said, "Well then, come with me to my office. We can sort out your housing needs there."

Isabelle and I followed Tom to his office and in his office I saw a nice wooden desk with a computer and a picture frame facing a desk chair and next to the desk was a coat hanger with a yellow coat hanging from it. There was also a shelf behind the desk, displaying several awards and trophies for architecture and home design, clearly, Tom knew how to build a house and make it stylish. Below the shelf there was a large map of Seascape, with house shaped thumbtacks placed in certain spots, I guessed that a house was located wherever a thumbtack was placed.

Tom sat down at his desk and said, "Please take a seat, both of you."

We both sat down and I asked Tom, "So how does this work? Do you show me several pictures of houses available in town and then we set up a mortgage?"

After I asked my question, both Isabelle and Tom let a small giggle. Tom said in a polite tone, "Well you do have a basic understanding of the housing market, but that's not how I run things here in Seascape."

I was a bit confused but then he said, "Here, let me explain. Now, usually when someone moves into Seascape, they call the town hall ahead of time to notify the officials that they're moving into town, and then they call me to set up a mortgage, then I build a house for them before they arrive. But since I didn't get a call from you, it will take some time for your house to be built, but we can fill out the housing form right now." Tom then pulled out a piece of paper from his desk and said, "Now, I usually fill these out for new residents while they're over the phone, but if you could just sign here, we can get started on getting you a house."

I looked at the paper and it read that a downpayment for a house started at ten thousand bells, I would have been taken back by the price, but luckily my family and I saved up a lot for my move, so I had enough to pay off the downpayment and still have a few thousand to spare.

I signed the paper and handed it back to Tom and said to him, "I can pay off the down payment right now, if that's not a problem."

Tom looked over the paper, then placed it back in his desk and said, "We can do that, yes yes."

I reached for my wallet and pulled out several large bells from it and counted them to make sure I had enough. Once I counted out ten thousand bells, I handed them to Tom, who then proceeded to count the bells as well, I guess he just wanted to be sure that I had enough.

Tom put the bells in his pocket, took out one house shaped thumbtack from his desk, got up and went to the giant map, and he then said, "Now where do would you like your house to be placed? We can place it anywhere you'd like, you can come up here to get a better look at the map for yourself if you'd like."

I got up from my seat, went up to the map and looked at it for a little while, I wasn't sure where I wanted to put my house. Then I noticed a small pond near a cliff face to the west, it wasn't near anyone else's house, so I thought it would be a nice spot to place my house. I pointed to the spot of land right between the cliff face and the pond and asked, "Could my house be placed here?", in a curious tone.

"Of course." Tom said. He then stuck the thumbtack on the spot I pointed to and said, "Let me write up your new address and then we can go stake your claim, so to speak." Tom went back to his desk and pulled a short piece of paper that read, "Address Card" and wrote down my new address. He then gave the card to me and said, "Your new address is 290 Pondside Road, I hope you'll like it."

Then Isabelle spoke up to say, "Excuse me Mr. Nook, but may I have a copy of that address card? I'd like it take back to town hall and finish Robert's application."

Tom then said to Isabelle, "Certainly, one moment." he then took out another card, quickly wrote out the address again and handed the card to Isabelle. She took the card from Tom, got up from her seat and said,

"Thank you Mr. Nook. Robert, I'm heading back to town hall to finish your application, then I'm gathering the townsfolk to celebrate your arrival at the plaza. The two of you can meet me there when you and Mr. Nook finish your business. See you soon." Isabelle then waved goodbye and both Tom and I waved back as she left the office.

Tom reached for his coat to put it on and he said to me, "Since we're heading out to where your new house is going to be, could you follow me to the supply closet? There are some things that I could use some help with carrying."

I said, "Sure, I'll help." We left the office and went to the closet which was right next to the office at the back wall of the building. He opened the closet and aside from basic cleaning supplies, there were two cardboard boxes on the floor, one read, "pegs" and the other read, "rope", both boxes looked worn down and had duct tape holding some corners together.

Tom picked up the rope box and said, "Could you pick up the box of pegs? Be warned, it's a little heavy."

I picked up the box of pegs and it was a bit heavy, there was a hole in the top of box, so I looked inside the box and saw that the pegs were made of metal and while they weren't very thick, there enough of them to weigh the box down. I turned to Tom, holding the box in both of my arms and said, "It is a little heavy, but I can carry it." Tom smiled and said,

"Good, I usually get my nephews to carry the ropes while I carry the pegs, this is nice change of pace, yes yes. Now let's go to where you want your house to be, we'll be using these ropes and pegs to mark where your property is." I then closed the closet with my foot and I said to Tom,

"Alright, let's go, I'll follow you to that pond where we're going." Tom nodded in agreement and walked towards the exit of his store and I followed.

\- Thank you for reading this chapter. Please leave a review if you'd like -


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Setting up.

As I followed Tom to the pond where my house was going to be built, I looked around Seascape some more, to see what I missed when Isabelle was pulling me towards town hall. Aside from more pear trees and a few cicadas chirping on said trees, there was not much to Seascape. I did see Isabelle knocking on the door of someone's house, she was probably letting people know that there was going to be something big happening at the plaza. We made it to the pond at the cliff face and it was a lot nicer than the flat image on the map, the water was very clear, the sun reflected off the pond nicely and there was a tree looking over the pond, making a nice spot for shade. I put the box of pegs on the ground and asked, "What do we do now?" Tom put his box down on the ground and said,

"We're going to use the ropes and pegs to mark where your house is going to be." He walked towards the box of pegs, opened it up and took out two of three rubber mallets that I did not notice were in the box. He tossed one to me, which fumbled in my hands and fell to the ground, as went to pick it up, Tom said, "Take that mallet, some pegs and drive the pegs into the ground, we're going to need about one thousand square feet of space for your house."

I looked into the box of pegs and counted nineteen pegs before I started to wonder if that was going to be enough to make the one thousand square feet that he wanted. Feeling a little unsure about the amount of pegs and then wondering about the length of the ropes a worried feeling got to me and I asked Tom, "Are there going to be enough pegs for this?"

Tom looked at me with a confused look on his face. "I have done this several times before, so please don't worry, we have enough pegs and I know what we're doing." Tom said in a polite tone.

I felt a little reassured when he said that and I also felt a little dumber for asking to begin with. I should have known that Tom had built plenty of houses before my house, but I was not going to let that get to me, I have said dumber things before that. With a little guidance on how much space there should be between each peg, from Tom, it did not take very long to get the necessary amount of pegs spiked into the ground and we had easily fenced off one thousand square feet.

After we roped off the space where my house was going to be, I did have a reasonable question for him, so I asked, "How long is it going to take to build my house?" Tom then took out a notepad and a pen from his coat to write down some stuff, I did not know what exactly he was writing, but I could hear him mumble a few things to himself,

"Okay, we have a standard house and that takes sometime to build. But he's here right now and he's paid off the down payment, so if I can make a few calls. Yes yes, that's manageable." Tom put his notepad back into his coat and said to me, "Alright, don't worry about how long it's going to take, you'll have your house before you know it, I promise." He said with happy tone. Tom then asked, "Now, do you have a place to stay for now? This construction will still take time."

That question hit me like a brick. I did not realize it until just then, I did not have a place to stay. I was so sure that there was going to be at least one premade house for sale, but that was not the case and then all this housing stuff happened so quickly, I did not even think about where I was going to stay while my house was being built.

I quickly thought about my options, I did not see anything that indicated a hotel or motel on the map when I skimmed through it, looking for Tom's business. I didn't know anyone in town yet, aside from Isabelle and Tom and while they did seem to be nice people, I doubted that they were nice enough to let someone they barely know into their homes, although that could have just been a little negative thinking on my part.

I just told Tom the truth, I felt a little ashamed about saying it though, "I don't have anywhere to stay yet, I sort of thought that I would have a house by now. Maybe I can just camp out in the mayor's office, I mean, my office, at town hall for a little while." As soon as I said, "camp out," Tom had a thinking look to him and then when his idea finally struck him, he said,

"Camp out, you say? That gave me an idea, give me a moment if you would." Tom reached into his pocket and took out an old looking flip-phone to make a call. He waited for a few seconds, then his call got through, "Hello?... Yes it's me, is that you Timmy?... Okay, Timmy, get your brother and go upstairs and get the tent from my closet, the big one… No, sorry we're not going camping, I need it to… Don't start whining, we went camping last month. Please get the tent and… Timmy, don't be like that… If you keep that up, you're grounded… That's better, now get the tent and bring it to the pond near the cliff face, check the map in my office if you need to… Okay, good, see you soon too." He hung up the phone with a slightly irritated look on his face.

Tom put the phone back in his pocket and I asked, "Who was that? It sounded like you were talking to your son." Tom let out a light laugh and said,

"No no, not my son, my nephew, although, I have been raising him and his brother like they were my own." He then looked at the ground and had a smile on his face like he was remembering something sweet, like reading them a bedtime story, or enjoying that camping trip he mentioned. Tom then looked back at me, still with a small smile and said, "That was Timmy, he and his brother, Tommy, are going to get a tent for you. They should be here shortly, they're very quick on their feet." He then sat down on the ground and I did the same as my feet were feeling tired.

We did not sit down for very long though, as we could hear something like metal sticks clanging together and the sound was getting closer. I looked behind me and saw a short brown raccoon running towards Tom and I, while carrying a wide box above his head. I didn't see the other kid just yet, but I guess he was right behind the other one, carrying the other end of the box.

Tom and I stood back up just as the kids reached us, they came to a stop right in front of Tom and placed the box gently down on the grass beside them. Timmy and Tommy were exactly identical twins, they even styled their hair in the same short upward spike. The only way I think anyone would be able to tell them apart, was that one them wore an orange shirt and the other, wore a white shirt.

After they set the box down, Timmy and Tommy stood right next to each other and they both said to Tom at the same time, "We brought the tent, Uncle." When they spoke, it sounded like one voice with some reverberation, which meant that they even sounded alike, I was not sure if they were twins, or clones.

Tom nodded, then he spun them around to face me and said, "Allow me to introduce you to my nephews. Robert, this is one in the orange shirt is Timmy and this is Tommy in the white shirt, they both run a small store on Main Street. Boys, this is Robert, he's Seascape's new mayor, I'm letting him borrow one of our tents while his house is under construction."

I walked up to them and crouched down to meet them a eye level and said, "Hi, I'm Robert, it's nice to meet you two." I then stuck out my hand for a proper greeting and both kids reached for my hand at the same time, with Tommy grabbing my hand and Timmy grabbing my wrist. After short laugh from all of us, I asked the boys, "So how old are you two?"

They spoke at the same time and said, "We're thirteen." causing that strange reverb-effect again.

I wanted to talk to them a little more but Tom said "Oh, look over there!" and pointed towards where plaza was. I looked towards the same direction and I saw a few people standing around, waiting for me from the looks of it, I looked around in the distance and saw some more people heading to the plaza from Main Street.

I turned around to Tom and the kids and said, "I should probably head over there now. Sorry I can't stay and help pitch the tent, but I think I'm needed there." I did want to stay and help them with the tent, but I had a feeling that the townsfolk were expecting me sooner, rather than later.

Tom said, "Don't worry, we'll be fine, the boys and I can have this tent set up in no time at all. You should hurry though, I don't think you should be late for your own welcome party. We'll see you soon." I still wanted to stay, but Tom was right, so without saying anything, I waved goodbye to Tom and his nephews and they waved back. As they started to set up the tent, I hurried towards the plaza.

\- Thank you for reading this chapter. Please leave a review if you'd like. -


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Inauguration

The plaza was not a great distance away so I could reach it by walking at a faster pace than how I usually walk. I looked at my watch to check the time and it looked to be around six thirty in the afternoon, I then looked up to the sky, while the sun was still up, it was in the midst of setting as it lowered itself to the cliff face to the west, placing my shadow in front of me and making it look taller than I am. I walked over the only bridge in town and took a turn to the left and made to the plaza in a few minutes.

The plaza was a large circle of cobblestone, stretching to cover a decent sized plot of land. To the right of the plaza was a nice field of grass that didn't go very far, as it came to a stop at the edge of a cliff that overlooked the entire beach. In the center of the plaza was a large and shallow plant box, it did not look like it was placed there like someone dropped it off, it looked like the box was dug into the ground and the plaza was built around it.

Several people were already at the plaza and more people were arriving. Isabelle was also at the plaza, standing in the plant box, she must have seen me, because she shouted to everyone, "Everyone! Hey everyone! There's our new mayor, Robert." Everyone looked directly at me, it was a very odd feeling having so many people look at me, I did not like, but I had to deal with it. Isabelle then said, "Mr. Mayor, come up here in the plant box, we begin the welcome ceremony when everyone's here." I walked past the group and stood on the rim of the plant box, it was a few inches off the ground, so I turned around to face the group and I could see over their heads.

I turned back around and walked on to the dirt, towards Isabelle and said, "Hi Isabelle, did my application go well?" Isabelle then said,

"Oh, yes everything went smoothly, I even have a Town Pass Card ready for you, it's just an ID card that proves you live here." Isabelle then took out a plastic card and handed it to me, which I took and put in my wallet.

I noticed a small sapling next to Isabelle's feet, I knew that something was going to planted in the box, but I wanted to know why it was going to be a tree, so I asked her, "How come we're going plant a tree?"

Isabelle said, "It was my idea, it's a symbolic thing. It symbolizes a fresh start for the town with the arrival of the new mayor, we're turning over a new leaf, so to speak. I even ordered an oak tree sapling for this occasion, good thing you showed up, I wasn't sure how long this little guy would have lasted in a flower pot."

I thought Isabelle's idea was very thoughtful, so I said to her, "That's a very nice thought Isabelle, I'm sure the tree will grow strong and tall in about, however long it takes for an oak to grow full size." Isabelle then laughed for a second or two, I guess she thought that what I said was funny.

I then heard a deep voice from behind me say, "Excuse me, Mr. Mayor?" I turned around and saw that it was the bear from the train station, he then said, "Everyone is here, I just wanted to let you know that."

I then said, "Oh, thank you." I looked at the crowd that formed at the plaza and I saw a few notable people standing amid the crowd. Along with Tom and his nephews, I saw a pair of brightly colored alpacas, a trio of hedgehogs, a trio of pelicans, and a cat with a leaf on her head. Everyone was looking at me, again. While I don't have stage fright, a whole lot of eyes looking at me, was a new and weird experience. I didn't really have a speech prepared, so I looked back to Isabelle and asked, "What should I say?"

Isabelle shrugged and she said, "I don't know, make something up, try to sound official, if you can." That wasn't very reassuring, but I had to say something, so I stood on rim of the plant box, faced the crowd and said,

"Hello, everyone. My name's Robert, I'm the new mayor here in Seascape. It's nice to meet you all, I'm sure I'll get along with all of you." I looked back at Isabelle, hoping she would have some on-the-fly advice, but all she did was give me a thumbs up, I guessed she was expecting me to continue my speech. "I may be new here, but I assure you that I will do my best at keeping Seaside a safe and hospitable town. Now to conclude this brief speech, I will plant this small sapling into the plant box." I turned back to face Isabelle and saw that she was holding the sapling and looking at me with a hopeful smile. As I walked towards her, she presented the sapling to and said,

"You have to take the sapling out of the flower pot, just give it a gentle tug and it should pop out of the pot." I took the sapling from her and did what she told me to do, it didn't come out right away, but after a few tugs, it popped out like Isabelle said it would. There was already a hole dug out in the plant box for the small tree, I carefully placed sapling into the hole and covered-up any gaps in the soil.

The crowd applauded my small accomplishment, I stood up, wiped the dirt off my hands and asked Isabelle, "What's next?"

Isabelle then walked on to the edge of the plant box and said, "This concludes the welcome ceremony, thank you all for coming." The crowd then dispersed, some of them headed back towards main street and a few stayed near the plaza to talk to each other. I walked towards Isabelle and said,

"Well, that was a short gathering, is it usually like that?" Isabelle then said,

"Yeah, they're usually like that. Our previous mayor didn't like wasting his time with these little events, so they never lasted very long, he was a pretty good mayor though. Now we should head back to town hall and talk about your duties as mayor."

While Isabelle was talking, I had this feeling that we were being watched, so I looked past Isabelle and saw Tom looking at us, I guess that he was waiting for me to finish talking to Isabelle, so that he could talk to me, so I said to Isabelle, "I think Tom wants to talk to me about something. Could we discuss what I have to do as a mayor tomorrow?"

Isabelle then said, "Sure, we can do that, I'll be heading back to town hall then. See you tomorrow Mr. Mayor." She then took off towards town hall, as I went to go see what Tom wanted to talk about, I figured that he wanted to tell me about how much the mortgage would cost.

I was only partly right about Tom talking about the mortgage, as he said, "Robert, we have your tent all set up, we even put in a little makeshift mailbox just for a good laugh. The tent is big enough for you to stand up in so no need to worry about any back problems. We can discuss the mortgage tomorrow, just come by my store and we'll see how much you owe."

I wasn't very excited to learn how much I owed, but I don't think anyone would want to see how much they're in debt, but I knew it going to happen so I said, "Okay I can do that, I'll be sure to drop by your store."

Tom then said, "Yes, good, I'll see tomorrow then. Have a nice evening." and took off towards Main Street. After Tom left, I looked up to the sky and saw that the sun was starting to get a little low and the chirps and croaks of crickets and frogs were getting louder, I looked at my watch and it was nearing 7 o'clock. I decided that it was time to call it a day and headed to the tent.

\- Thank you for reading this chapter. Please leave a review if you'd like. -


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Evening

As I was heading towards the tent, I stopped, as I heard a low rumbling coming from my stomach, that was when I realized that I had not eaten anything since breakfast. Then I looked back on my day and realized how a lot of things happened in one day. I had gone from a guy trying to find a new home, to a mayor of a small town and it felt almost as if no time had passed, although I did realize that I spent good chunk of the day asleep on a train. Still, I had an empty stomach to deal with, I saw a pear tree nearby and while I was not the biggest fan of pears, I was pretty hungry, so they would have to do.

The tree was pretty tall so jumping wasn't going to do any good, I tried shaking the tree, but it was more sturdy than I thought. I had an idea to throw rocks at the pears, but the only rock a could find, was a small boulder stuck in the ground. I was about to give up and walk away from the tree, when I stepped on an old branch that must have fallen off of it, the branch was long enough to reach the fruit and was I able to knock down three pears. After I had picked up the pears, it was only a short walk to the tent that Tom and his nephews had set up for me. The tent was tall like Tom said, I was impressed, as I thought they did not make tents like that. I went inside the tent and found it a little barren, as there was nothing inside it, but I was surprised to find that the floor was rather soft.

I sat down in a corner of tent and started to eat the pears I had gathered, they were not the best tasting thing ever, I was not sure if pears were an acquired taste, or if they just were not ripe. After I finished the pears, I put the remains right next to me and thought about going to sleep, since I did not know what else I could do. I laid down on the floor and closed my eyes, to try to get some sleep. I drifted off for a little while, until I felt uncomfortable for some reason, I was laying on my side, so I checked my pocket and pulled out my wallet, I put it with the pears and laid back down, but then I had a feeling that I was forgetting something. I sat up and thought about it for a minute or two, when I realized the mistake that I had made. I left my suitcase at the town hall.

I looked at my watch and saw that it was nearing eight o'clock, so I figured that if I ran, I could make it to town hall before Isabelle locked up for the night. As soon as I got out of the tent, I started to run to town hall, but my running cut short, as I tripped on something that caused me to fall face first onto the ground. I laid on the ground for a few seconds, feeling a bit stupid for falling on my face, then I picked myself up and I saw that I tripped over a large rock. I kicked the rock to no avail, then I saw a light come from behind me and turned around to be temporarily blinded by the light.

As I put my hands up to block the light from my eyes, I heard a voice say, "Oh, sorry Mr. Mayor, I didn't mean to shine the lantern in your face." The lantern was then lowered away from my face, so I lowered my hands to get a look at who was talking to me, I then said,

"Oh, Isabelle, it's you. What are you doing here?" I asked her.

Isabelle then said, "Well, I was getting ready to lockup town hall for the night, when I noticed that your suitcase was lying right in front of my desk, so after I locked up, I thought I could give your suitcase back to you. So here it is." Isabelle then held up my suitcase to me, which I thankfully took from her, I then said,

"Thanks Isabelle, I was worried that I would have had to wait until morning to get my things back. I guess I'll see you tomorrow at work." I turned around and was heading back to my tent, when I heard Isabelle say,

"Hey, can I see your place?" I turned back around to face her as she said, "I noticed that you wanted your house near that pond by the cliff face, I always thought that was one of the nicer spots in Seascape." I was grateful to Isabelle and I did not see any reason why she should not see where my home was going to be built, so I said,

"Yeah, come on, I'll show you where my house is going to be." I turned around again to head to the tent and Isabelle followed. We reached the tent in a short amount of time and while it was dark, there was some light from the moon, but not much. Isabelle's attention was not kept by the pond for very long, I guess it was because the light from her lantern was not illuminating the pond very well, my thoughts were confirmed by Isabelle, as she said,

"Eh, it's not very nice when there's hardly any natural light, it looks a lot better when it's morning, or late in the afternoon." Her attention then shifted to the tent and she said, "So this where you're house is going to be. It's nice to see Mr. Nook had let you borrow one of his tents in the meantime."

I agreed with Isabelle and said, "Yeah, he seems like a nice guy. You know, I've never seen a brown raccoon before, I wonder if it's a genetics thing?" I was going to ask Isabelle if she knew why, but I got her answer before I even had a chance to ask her, she seemed a little angry about it too,

"Mr. Nook and his nephews are not raccoons! They are tanukis, they're a Japanese animal. Sure, they are similar to raccoons, but there is a big enough difference for them to be a different species. Please remember that, Mr. Nook gets very offended if you get it wrong."

I was a little surprised to see Isabelle snap at me like that, but I guess she just wanted to make sure that her friends are not hurt by little mistakes, I tried to calm her down by saying, "Sorry, I didn't know, I promise I won't make that mistake around Tom." Isabelle then returned to her calm manner and said,

"Okay, good. Sorry I snapped at you, it's just that I hate seeing him get angry over that, the last person who called him raccoon, got his house built by the cliff overlooking the beach and the front door to his house was just a quick drop down the beach. He didn't live here for very long because of that. I should get going, but before I go, I have a welcoming gift for you." Isabelle then held the lantern to me and said, "It's a bit of a last minute idea, but I thought that you would have more use out of it then I would." I took the lantern from Isabelle and said,

"Thank you Isabelle. But won't you have a hard time getting back to your place in the dark?" She then pulled out a small flashlight from a pocket on her shirt and said,

"Don't worry, I've got that covered. I should get going now, I'll see you tomorrow Mr. Mayor." Isabelle then left for her house and I went back inside the tent.

I placed the lantern and my suitcase next to each other in a corner of the tent that didn't have pear remains, then opened the suitcase to see if anything was missing, not that I didn't trust Isabelle with my belongings, but I did only know her for less than a day. I checked through every pocket in my suitcase and everything was in was where it was when I packed it up. I closed the suitcase and I started to feel a little tired, so I turned the lantern off and used the suitcase as pillow as drifted off to sleep.

\- Thank you for reading this chapter. Please leave a review if you'd like. -


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Long Morning.

I woke up the next morning with a slight pain in my neck, most likely from using the suitcase as pillow. Ignoring the pain, I opened the suitcase and took out a clean shirt to replace the one that I had slept in, after that, I took out a small notepad from the suitcase's pockets, in the notepad was a list of of phone numbers, one of them being my family's house phone. I had the idea to call them and tell them how I was doing, but then I also remembered that I had to talk to Tom about the debt and I have to find out what I have to do as mayor, so my day, or at least morning, looked busy. I looked at my watch and the time was a little after seven thirty, so I didn't know if Tom's store or the town hall were open yet.

As I left the tent, I saw a few bubbles fly in front of me, I popped one of them, but I wondered where they came from. There was a slight breeze coming in from the north so I went to go check out what was making the bubbles. I ended up at the river and saw that there was a waterfall coming from the cliff face that poured into the river and at the base of the waterfall, I saw that yellow duck from the train station, sitting on the edge of the river with his feet in the water, he had a box of detergent, scrubbing brushes, an old looking washboard, and a small gym bag that looked full of something. He had obviously used the detergent earlier, as he was the source of the bubbles. I walked up to the duck and said, "Good morning." That caught his attention as he looked at me and said,

"Oh, Mr. Mayor, it's you, good morning. I'm just just trying to get some stains out of my shirts. A word of advice: Don't eat anything with a massive amount barbeque sauce if you're wearing light colored clothes." He then took out a white shirt from the bag, the shirt had a large and recent looking stain made of barbeque sauce, he placed the shirt on the washboard and started to rub it back and forth, trying to get the stain out.

I figured that as mayor, it would be better for me to get to know the people around town and decided to try to have a little chat with him, so I said, "Thank's for the advice, but you can call me Robert if you'd like." I then sat down next to him, but I kept my feet out of the water.

He did not look like he was bothered when I sat down next to him and he seemed to be an easy-going kind of guy. "Okay, I can call you Robert if you prefer that. My name's Joey, it's nice to meet you." he said.

I then said, "It's nice to meet you too. So Joey, what do people do in Seascape? The map of the town is pretty small, I mean this is a very pretty place, but from the looks of the map, I'd have to go the next town over for grocery shopping."

Joey then stopped what he doing and thought about what I said for a few seconds and then he said, "Well, we sort of do whatever. I catch bugs, chill out on the beach and watch tv, we're a very laid-back town." He then put some detergent on his shirt and continued washing it, causing more bubbles to fly into the air.

I popped one of the bubbles that flew too close to me while saying, "Oh, that sounds nice." Joey nodded in agreement. Still curious, I asked, "So what do people do for a living here? I saw the businesses on Main Street and they seemed a bit... small, even for a town like this."

Joey had just finished removing the stain, he wrung out the shirt, placed in back in the bag and pulled out another shirt, this one was green shirt and had what looked to be a mustard stain on it and proceeded to wash it. As he was scrubbing the stain away he said, "Well, I think we all have jobs here in Seascape. There are two owls who run the museum, three pelicans that run the post office, three hedgehogs run a clothing store, Tom and his nephews run the house store and the general store and two alpacas run the recycling center. I'm not sure what everyone else does, but I go fishing with Grizzly, we sell the better catches and eat the other ones. One time I caught a shark, a baby shark, but still a shark."

"Is Grizzly that bear who was at the train station when I got here?" I asked. I looked at my watch and while not much time passed, I thought that after Joey answered my question, I should make my way to see Tom or Isabelle.

Joey then said. "Yeah, that was him. Oh, and if you were wondering what he's like, Grizzly may look big, strong and scary, and he is, but you don't have to worry about getting him angry, he's really a big softie, unless you make him lose a fish, then he'll throw as far as he can. That happened to me once, had to swim back to shore when he tossed me into the ocean." Joey looked at where the stain used to be on his shirt, wrung the water out, and put the shirt back in the bag, then put the brushes and detergent in the bag, then zipped it up. Joey then stood up with the bag and washboard in hand and said, "Well I got to go and hang these shirts to dry, it was nice talking to you Robert, I'll see you around town."

I got up as well and said, "It was nice talking to you too Joey, I gotta get going too, mayor things to do, bye." Joey and I then took off in the same direction, we did not acknowledge it though, opting for a very awkward silence, even as I walked past his house on the way to the bridge, we kept quiet. After Joey was home and I was on my way, I decided that one of the first things I was going to do as mayor was to commission a second bridge.

I went to Main Street first, since I thought it would be best to learn how much I owed Tom and think of a way to pay him off as soon as I could. Tom's store was open, so I went inside and saw that Tom was talking to a dog and an otter, both of them were wearing the same uniform, a red blazer with blue formal pants. Tom said to them, "Good work on the home evaluations you two, you've definitely earned your pay, the checks should be in the mail tomorrow." Tom must have heard the door close behind me, as he turned to me and said, "Robert, yes, good to see you. I'll be right with you, just one moment." He turned back to face his workers and said, "You two can return to your posts, I have some business with our new mayor to discuss."

The otter while slowly walking off to a desk in the left corner of the building and spoke a in a strange way to talk, "Back to work. On it Boss. Mr. Mayor. Hi. Name's Lyle. Welcome to town." When he finally reached his desk, he sat down and stared into space almost as if he was getting paid for it.

The dog, walked right up to me and while we were about the same height, his posture made it seem like he was looking down at me. "So you're the 'Mr. Mayor' that Isabelle was talking about." he said. "She looked pretty cheerful talking about you, you'd better not get any ideas about my sister, because mayor or not, I'll beat the crap out of you." He said with an anger that felt like he was an overprotective father, rather than a brother, although I was surprised the Isabelle had a brother to begin with.

I thought it would be best to try to calm him down, so I said, "Okay, relax, I'm not going to try anything with her." I then slowly backed away a few steps, because if he was any closer he might as well have been standing on my head. He didn't want me to back off though, as he walked right back up to my face with an angry look and he was about to say something, but Tom decided to put a stop to this and said,

"Digby, leave him alone and get back to work, you're not getting paid to threaten customers." Digby then backed away from me and looked to Tom and said,

"Sorry Boss, I'll get back to work" Digby then walked to the supply closet in the back, took out a broom and started sweeping the floor, but he had an irritated look to him.

Wanting to get back to what I came here for, I went to go talk to Tom and I said, "Good morning, Tom."

Tom smiled and said, "Good morning to you too and I'm sorry for the way Digby talked to you, he's really a good kid, but I don't know what got into him just now."

I looked at Digby and he was sweeping the floor a bit too roughly and it looked like he was just spreading the dirt around. I looked back to Tom and said, "It's alright, now we should probably talk about my mortgage."

Tom's eye's got a little spark in them when I said that, I supposed Tom liked collecting bells and he said, "Yes, let's talk business. Now for a house your size, it was fairly easy for me to calculate the cost: One hundred thousand bells." While Tom named the price as if I was only paying for a can of soda, my eyes widened quite a bit and my felt a lump in throat, because I did not have that kind of bells on me and I did not know how long it would for me to save that much, since I had no idea how much a mayor earns. But Tom still had more to say, as he said, "It's a rather small sum, yes? But if it seems a bit daunting for you, please don't worry, you can just pay me what you can, whenever you can and don't worry about an interest rate either, I'm no loan shark."

Knowing that, I felt the weight that was just put on me, be lifted off. Feeling a bit more confident with paying off my debt, I said, "That's very generous of you Tom, I'll be sure to make payments on regular basis." I looked to a clock on my left and saw that it read a quarter after eight o'clock, so I thought it would be best to go town hall and see what I had to do as mayor. I said, "Now, I should probably head to town hall, I have job to figure out how to do."

Tom had a little laugh and said, "You should go do that, I'm sure you'll do a great job." I left the store and headed towards town hall.

It was a quick walk to town hall and as I opened the door, I saw Isabelle, with eyes glued to her computer screen, typing away. I knew all too well what it is like to spend hours on a computer, but I needed her help to know how to do my job, so I spoke up, "Good morning Isabelle." I said and Isabelle sprang up from her chair with a startled look on her face, complete with a small yelp. She calmed down almost instantly though and looked at me and said,

"Oh, Mr. Mayor, you startled me, but good morning to you too." She still had that smile of hers, it was a little uncanny, how she kept smiling. "If you're ready to see what a mayor has to do, please take a seat at your desk." she said. I sat down at my desk and saw that the computer at my desk was already switched on, the rest of my desk, aside from a giant, old looking office phone, was a bit empty.

After I sat down I looked to my right and Isabelle was standing next to me and she said, "Okay, so as mayor you have several things to do. The first thing: Commission public work projects, those are things like benches, bridges, streetlights and other things to decorate the town with." I was very interested in building a bridge, I would have said to build one right then, but I listened to what Isabelle still had to say. "Second thing: Give a town ordinance, they're not exactly laws or rules, but more of guidelines on how the town will run. Third thing: You can choose who can get to move into Seascape, there's even small list of people wanting to move here already, let me show you." Isabelle then took the computer mouse and clicked on a file on the computer and a window showing a list of a few names. "A few people called asking if they could move here while Seascape was mayorless, and since it was the mayor's decision, I told them that we would call them back. And now that you're here, our town can finally expand. That's about it for your mayoral duties, aside from the occasional bit of paper work. So what do you want to do first?"

I was interested in having a bridge built, but this town was small, so having more people could be good for Seascape's businesses. After a little thinking I thought it would be best to bring new people to Seascape. "I think we should add some new people to town how do we that?" I asked Isabelle.

Isabelle said, "Well people would usually call us and ask for permission to move in and we would either allow them or deny them, but since I've been having some of these people waiting for two weeks, I doubt most of them would still be waiting for us, you can still try though, just pick who you think would make a good addition to Seascape."

I looked at the list of names, and saw that two people by the names of, Julian and Tammy, were listed together and have only been waiting for two days, so I thought I would give them a call. I picked up the phone and dialed the number that was next to their names, I waited for a few seconds then someone picked up the call.

"Hello? Who is this?" said a male sounding voice, I responded by saying,

"Hello. This the mayor of Seascape, I'm calling to talk about your request to move to Seascape. Am I talking to Julian?" I felt a little nervous about this, I was hoping that I wouldn't offend him by saying something stupid.

"Yes, this is Julian." he said. "I'm glad you got hold of me, your secretary told me you would have some questions. So what do you need to know." I was completely unaware that Isabelle said that, but luckily, I came up with a few quick of questions.

"Yes, I have some questions, they should be easy to answer." I said, then I asked the first question, "You have another person by the name of Tammy listed along with you, who is she?" I asked.

Julian quickly responded, "Tammy is my girlfriend, we've been living together for a while now and we thought it would be good to get out of the city and move somewhere nice and quiet, we looked for a little while, and Seascape seemed like a good place to live."

"That's nice," I said, "and you actually answered my second question, which was why you wanted to move to Seascape. Well you seem well and good, so I have no problem in saying that you're more than welcome here."

Julian's sounded very excited as he said, "Really? Thank you very much! I got to go tell Tammy about this!"

It sounded like he was going hang-up, so I said, "Wait! There are still somethings you need to know!"

Julian didn't hang up and said, "Oh, sorry, I got a little excited there for a second. So what did you want to tell me?"

"Now there are a few things, you should know like how to get here and how to get a house. My secretary can tell you those, so I'll hand the call over to here. This should be it from me, but I hope to see you soon in Seascape." I then handed over the call to Isabelle and I overheard her side of the conversation,

"Hello, it's me the secretary… Yes, nice to know you're going to be living here… You can get to Seascape by train… Oh, no trains in your city? Well I'm sure you can take a bus here… Oh, well there's nothing wrong with renting a moving van. You know where the town is right?... Good… Now how long will it take you to get here?... Well that's pretty fast, but we'll still be able to have a house ready for you. Now I'm going to transfer you to Mr. Nook, he runs the housing market here, you can talk to him about getting a house… Don't worry Mr. Nook's business practice is very secure, many of our townsfolk got there homes from him over the phone… Ok, I'm transferring you now. We hope to see you soon." She pressed a few buttons on the phone, then hung it up.

Isabelle then said to me, "I think you handled that well and it's nice to know that we'll be seeing new people pretty soon too, maybe they'll tell their friends and they'll move here too." Isabelle then had thinking look on and said, "Hmm… But I don't think Mr. Nook can make that many houses that fast, maybe we should have the town grow slowly, don't want to put too much strain on him." Isabelle went back to her standard smile and said, "Well I suppose you're free spend the rest of the day as you see fit. I'll be heading back to my desk now, but you can call me if you need me." Isabelle then went back to her desk and sat down at her computer.

My new job seemed relatively easy, but maybe there would be some sort of dilemma that I would have to solve down the line. I thought about what to do for the rest of the day and I thought about calling my family, like I thought about earlier this morning, but I decided to call them some other time. After playing a little bit of a chess program on my computer and losing on the easiest difficulty like how it always happens for me, I thought about how I only knew three people in town and thought that I should at least get acquainted with everyone in a town this small. I got up from my seat walked towards the door, but I stopped at Isabelle and said, "I'm going to try to meet everyone in town, Seascape is pretty small, so I should be able to meet everyone before dark."

Isabelle looked up at me and said, "That sounds like a great idea! You have fun with that, I'll see you later." Isabelle then went back to her computer and I headed outside.

\- Thank you for reading this chapter, it's my longest chapter yet! Please leave a review if you'd like. -


	8. Chapter 8

\- Sorry if chapter 8 first came out as a copied version of chapter 7, I made mistake and I fixed as fast as I could. -

Chapter 8: Meeting the Townsfolk.

I left town hall and headed for the first house I saw, it was very close to town hall and just overlooking the river as well. I knocked on the door and waited for a moment, I then heard a voice coming from the house, "One second, I'll be right there!" The door then opened and standing in the doorway was a brown horse with a pink mane and a sunflower in her hair. She then said, "Oh, the mayor! What a surprise to see you. Would you like to come inside? I was about to enjoy some tea."

"I'd be glad to. My name's Robert by the way." I said, although tea is not exactly my cup of tea, pun intended.

The horse then said, "Oh yes, how silly of me, I haven't even introduced myself yet. My name is Annalise, now please, come on in and I'll get us some tea." Annalise then headed back inside and I followed. In her living room was a sofa, a chair and a small table in front of the sofa with the chair was placed on the side of the table. Her living room was very elegant and classical, all of the wooden furniture had decorative curves carved into them and the fabrics had classically styled floral patterns, the house felt very much like it was from the nineteenth century.

I had to compliment Annalise's home design and so I said, "Your house is very lovely Annalise. Where did you find these pieces?"

I could hear a little bit of flattery from her as she said, "I'm glad you like my elegant sense of style, most of these are replicas of furniture found in the Palace of Versailles, that's where the king of France lived. It took awhile for me to get my house like this, but I'm very happy with the results. Now please, take seat and I'll be right back with the tea." Annalise the went to her kitchen and I sat down on the sofa. I looked around her living room and the only thing I could see that wasn't designed to look like it was made two hundred years ago, was large flat-screen T.V. and a sleek looking remote. A few seconds later, Annalise came back with a tea tray and set it down on the table and sat in the chair. As she was pouring the tea, Annalise asked, "Now, why is the mayor paying a visit to me this morning?"

She picked up the tea cup and the tiny plate it rested on and handed them to me, as I took the tea, I answered, "I'm trying to at least become acquainted with everyone in town and your house was the closest from the town hall, so I thought I would meet you first." I then took a drink of the tea and I could not tell what kind it was, it did not taste like anything I have ever had and was very bitter. Dealing with the bitterness of the tea, I drank the whole cupful as it was a very small cup, I placed the cup back down on the tray and tried to ignore the aftertaste on the roof of my mouth. Wanting to continue the conversation, I said to Annalise, "So Annalise, tell me about yourself. A lady with your sense of style, must be doing something noteworthy here in town?"

Annalise took a sip of her own tea, then said, "Well, aside from my lovely decor, I'm really quite normal. I wake up, eat breakfast, get ready for the day, go to work, then come home, or I go see some of my friends." She then finished her tea and refilled both cups.

Before I picked up the tea cup I said, "Sounds like an nice day. Where do you work?" I then picked up the tea and drank it all at once, just to get it over with. Annalise then poured a third cup of tea for me saying,

"Looks like someone likes green tea, here, have some more." Much to my dismay, but I did not want to be rude and tell her that I did not want anymore, although she did answer my question, "I work at Able Sisters, it's a quaint little clothing shop on Main Street. I work there as a cashier, but every so often the sisters and I get together and discuss what kind of clothes will go on sale."

I took sip of the tea, then placed back on the tray and said, "That's interesting. I haven't had the chance to meet the sisters yet, what are they like?"

Annalise then said, "They're very nice young women, but they have very different from each other. Mabel is usually the first one you'll see and she's very cheerful and energetic, always trying to up-sale a customer. Sable is a little shy and tucked away in a corner of the shop, just making clothes to sell, but once she warms up to you, she can be as cheerful as Mabel. The last sister and I'm not sure if she's the oldest or not, is Labelle, she's more mature than her sisters and handles accessories. I get along with all of them very well, although I do wish Sable wouldn't be so shy." She then drank her tea before refilling it once more.

I finished my tea as I placed the cup back on the tray, then I stood up and said, "I should be going now, I still have a lot of people to meet and I shouldn't be taking up all of your time. Thank you for the tea and I suppose I'll see you around town."

Annalise picked up the tray and stood up as well saying, "Don't worry, you didn't take up any of my time at all, it's my day off. It was nice meeting you Robert and I'll see you around town too and if you meet the sisters, tell them I said 'Hi.'"

"Sure I can do that, I'll be on my way now, it was nice meeting you." As I headed for the door, Annalise headed for the kitchen. After I left Annalise's house, I headed towards my next destination, a pink shop with a sign the read "Re-Tail" above the door.

I stepped inside the shop, hearing a nice little bell ring as the door opened and closed, the ringing caught the attention of a pink alpaca, who said, "Hello! Please feel to… Oh! It's the mayor, it's nice to see you in our store. If you need help with anything, don't be afraid to ask." The store had pink walls just like the outside and there were light-blue pallets on the floor, some of the pallets didn't have anything on them, while the others had various items on them, like lamps, chairs, knick-knacks, and shirts.

After looking at the shirts to see if there were any I liked, I went up the the shop-keep to introduce myself, "It's a very nice store you have here. My name's Robert and it's a nice to meet you Ms…?" I stuck out my arm for a handshake to which she obliged and said,

"You can call me Reese, and it's nice to meet you too Robert." She let go of my hand and said, "Now is there anything I can help you with? Oh wait. This is your first time here right? Would you like me to explain how Re-Tail works?"

I was curious to see how this store works, since Tom had such an unusual way of managing his business, so I said, "Sure, I'd like to know how things work here."

Reese smiled as she said, "Good, I'll explain. Now, Re-Tail is sort of like a mix between a thrift store and a refurbishing center, people around town come in here to put things up for sale, they can name the price on what they sell and we'll give them the bells the next time they come to the store, but if it doesn't get bought after two months, we sell it off ourselves. The second part of our store is refurbishing, my husband, Cyrus, can take just about any piece of furniture and have it redesigned for you, for the right price. That's about it, is there anything else I can help you with?"

"Interesting." I said, "I'd like to meet Cyrus, if he's not too busy, I'm trying to get to know, or at least meet everyone in town."

Reese said, "Of course you can meet him, he should be taking a break right about now. He has his own workspace on the other side of the store, follow me." I followed Reese, but it was a very brief walk, I thought it would have been quicker for her to just point me in the right direction, but I was glad that she was with me when I met Cyrus, because he was sleeping in a chair and I did not want to wake him. Reese was a little amused to see him asleep and said, "Well there he is sleeping again, weird, he had a cup of coffee no more than ten minutes ago. I'll try to wake him up, one moment if you please, Cyrus is a bit of a heavy sleeper."

While Reese was trying to wake up Cyrus, I saw a strange looking bed on top of a pallet. It had a sort of futuristic vibe to it, there was no blanket on it, but there was a large bump where the head would rest and the mattress was lying on a curvy bed frame, the white of the frame was being painted over with black paint and I saw that next to Cyrus, whom Reese was still trying to wake up, that there were some bottles of red dye. I really liked the bed and would have bought it, except I had nowhere to put still living in a tent for the time being and it was obvious that Cyrus was refurbishing the bed for someone else.

Reese tried gently waking her husband up, but it was not working, so she used a sure-fire method wake him up, she pinched his nose closed and covered his mouth with her hand, cutting off his air ways and he abruptly woke up seconds after he could not breath, although he was not happy about that as he said, "Dammit, Reese! What on Earth was that for?!"

Reese with a calm tone said, "Calm down now sweetie, I only woke you because we have a special customer who'd like to make your acquaintance. This is the mayor, Robert."

I walked up to Cyrus and offered him a handshake while saying, "Hello Cyrus, I'm sorry if I bothered you. I like the bed that you're working on."

Cyrus still looked angry from being woke up but he did calm down a little after complimented him on the bed. He shook my hand said, "Thanks, nice to know you like it. So, what brings you to our store?" He let go of my hand and his tone seemed to have settled down.

I said, "I'm just going around town trying to meet everyone, but I can tell that you're pretty busy right now, so maybe I should go. We can talk some other time if you'd like."

Cyrus seemed a little irritated, but I could see why, He got woken up from a nap just so I could say 'Hi' and then leave, I would have gotten angry too. Still, he tried to be reasonable and said, "Sure, we can do that. Just make sure I'm awake next time alright?"

I gave a small laugh and said, "Okay, I'll be sure of that. Anyways I should go, still have a whole town to meet. I'll see you both later." Cyrus and Reese both waved goodbye as I left the store, I felt a little awkward from meeting them, but I guess I can not make good first impressions with everyone I meet. Ignoring the awkwardness, I pressed on, I wanted to say hi to the monkey at the train station, but he was not there, I guess it was his day off or something. I then headed for Main Street, thinking I could meet a lot of people at once.

\- Thanks for reading this chapter. Please leave a review if you'd like. -


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: A tour of Main Street.**

Main Street was not the most active place in the world, the only thing I saw was a few small birds and they flew away when I came a little too close for their comfort. I thought it would be a good idea to go see what was going on at the museum, since a photo of it was advertised in the pamphlet. It was only a short walk to the left of Main Street, and the museum was in pretty good shape, not as white and polished like it was in the photo, but there was not a single chip or crack in the stone. I went up the short flight of steps and when I entered the museum, the main hall was empty. I heard something that sounded like someone snoring, but there was no one in the room besides me, but then on a wall, I saw what looked like a rope ladder and when I looked up, I saw a perch attached to the wall and an owl was sleeping on said perch.

I did not want to wake him and just leave, like I did with Cyrus, so I left without saying anything and trying to be as quiet as I could, and I decided to go back to the museum another time. "Well that's another awkward moment avoided." I said to myself, "I guess I'll go down Main Street from here and visit each store one-by-one." I said, and so I did. The first few buildings I walked past were completely abandoned, boarded up windows and all, it got me thinking, that since my new job is being the mayor, I should make sure that the buildings don't go to waste and to make sure a respectable business can work from there. "Maybe this tall building can be a video game store." I said speaking aloud, but then my better judgement got to me and I said, "Maybe I should have Isabelle help out with town development."

The first business on the list to visit was Nook's Homes, I was thinking of just going to the post office right next door, but I thought it would be a good idea to properly meet that otter and try to get on Digby's good side. I went inside and saw that the otter was still at his desk, drifting off into space, and Digby looked at me as soon as he heard the door open and then immediately looked away, obviously not wanting to see me, and Tom must have been in his office. I went up to the otter to introduce myself and as soon as I walked up to his desk, his eyes stopped the seemingly endless gaze into whatever and directly looked at mine, it was a little startling. "Umm… Hi, my name's Robert and you're name is… Lyle? Right?" I asked, just wanting to make sure I remembered it correctly.

"Lyle. Yep. That's my name. Don't wear it out." He said in that odd way of speaking. "How can I help?" he asked in a very direct manner.

I quickly answered him, "I was wondering what exactly is your job here?"

Lyle then said, "Sure. I can explain. Tom. Good guy. Makes houses. People move in. They decorate. Sometimes badly. Me and Digby. We look at houses. We evaluate decore skills. Rate them. Best score gets a gold plaque. Then BOOM! Envy of neighborhood. Everyone decorates better. Nicer homes all over the place. Then next evaluation comes around. And BOOM! Tons of nice houses. All get good scores. Pretty soon. Town making waves. Getting attention from other towns. More people visit or move in. With your say so of course. Healthy competition. Good for business. Good for Seascape." He said all of that in almost one breath, he had some powerful lungs.

"Interesting," I said, "That would explain why Annalise's house was so extravagant. I hope my house will get the high scores when it gets evaluated." I did hope I would get good scores, but I then thought to myself, "Then I should get something to hang on the walls, besides video game posters and a small family portrait." I then spoke to Lyle and said, "It was nice meeting you. Your job is pretty cool. Now I'm going to see if I can get on Digby's good side." After I said that, I had a nervous feeling in my stomach, but that really was not unexpected, tension does that to me on the occasion.

Lyle then nodded and said, "Good luck. Digby. Good kid. Some advice. Tough cookie. Just looking out for himself and his sis. Those two. Thick as thieves."

I then said, "Oh, thanks for the advice. I'm sure it will help." I waved goodbye and he did as well, then he went back to staring into space. As I walked towards Digby, I quickly thought of a few things to try to say, but I had to get his attention first, so I said "Hey Digby, can we talk?"

Digby looked at me with an irritated look in his eyes, "Sure, we can talk, it's not like I have work I need to do. So what do you want to say?" He said in a dry and sarcastic tone.

I felt a little irritated as well, clearly he did not want to talk to me, and I did not really want to talk to him either, but I felt like I had to at least get him to be okay with me. "Digby, I don't know what Isabelle said about me, but you got the wrong idea, so let me be honest. I have only known her for two days. I'm not going to try anything with her. I'm not very good at the dating thing, plus I've heard that going out with a coworker never works. Are we clear now?" I said, in complete honesty.

Digby's eyes darted around the room a few times, I could tell he thinking on this a bit more than I thought he should, but he finally, and from his tone, begrudgingly said, "Alright, I believe you. Still, remember what I said, you try anything and I will come after you with a baseball bat. But I guess if you really aren't going to do anything, I don't see why we can't get along." I felt a little relieved when he said that, I could tell that he did not consider me a friend, but at least he was not going to threaten me just for being near Isabelle anymore.

"Good," I said, "maybe we can hang out sometime." I thought it would best to try to end the talk with chance to try to get along better, but Digby shrugged it off saying,

"Yeah, 'maybe', or whatever. Now I don't mean this in the rudest way, but I do have work I need to get back too. So if you'll excuse me?" He then excused himself, then headed for the supply closet to get some stuff.

I then left the store and went into the post office, which was conveniently right next door to Nook's Homes. It was a small post office, I guess with so few people living here, mail would not be that big of an issue. Still it was a nice and cozy little place, sunlight from the window, hitting the wooden walls gave off a warm and pleasant feeling. I saw an ATM machine in the corner, but seeing as I did not have a bank account, I ignored it and headed to the counter. There was no one on the other side of the counter, but there was a bell, so I rang it a few times and waited for a response.

A few seconds later, the door on the other side of the counter, flew open and purple pelican walked over with an irritated look on her face. She looked at me as if I had just thrown her the middle finger and she said, "Oh, the new mayor. Well, what do you want? You're interrupting my lunch break."

I looked at the clock and saw that it wasn't even eleven o'clock yet, I pointed this out to her and said, "It's not even noon yet." but she then said,

"It's never too early for my lunch break. Now, what do you want? My show is on and I don't have anything to record what I'm missing." I think anyone could tell that she was not a big fan of people, or her job, and just wants me out of the post office as soon as possible. Since I do not like being around people like her, I decided to keep what I wanted to say brief.

"I just wanted to know who works here." I said with a slight annoyance. I thought she would say something rude, or pick up on my annoyed tone and try to pick a fight with me, but she gave me an answer.

"Me, my sister, and a friend of ours. Now what does it matter to you?" I was already a bit miffed with her tone, but that last question was filled with so much spite, so I thought it would be best to leave and come back when her sister, or friend was working.

I tried to make it seem that I wasn't too annoyed with her and said, "Okay, I can see that I came at a bad time, so maybe I'll try some other time. Have a nice day." She did not return the good-bye and just walked back to back room, I then turned around and headed for the door. As I was about to open the door, it opened from the other side and a white pelican walked in and bumped into me, as well as dropping a bag.

The Pelican then apologized to me saying, "Sorry for bumping into you like that, I was just heading in and I didn't think someone would be that close to the door" He picked up his bag and then saw who I was and got a little more worried, "Oh my goodness, you're the mayor! I didn't realize it was you. Please don't fire me!" he said in scared tone as he put his hands together in a begging way.

I was a little confused when he said that, so I said, "I don't think I can do that."

The pelican then calmed down and said, "Oh, okay then. Well, sorry for acting like that. It's nice to meet you, my name's Pete by the way." He sounded a lot more calm and seemed a lot more nicer than that other woman I was talking to a moment ago.

"I'm Robert, it's nice to meet you. Could I ask you some questions about the post office?" I was sure I could get much more through answers from Pete.

He smiled and said, "Sure, what do you want to know?

"Okay, first: I met this really rude woman working here. Who is she?" I asked.

Pete then said, "Her name's Phyllis. She's something isn't she" he said with a hint of admiration and affection. He then said, "Was she being particularly rude to you? I wouldn't hold it against her, she just cranky that she has to work the day and night shift until Pelly's cold clears up."

I wondered who Pelly was, but then I thought back to my welcoming ceremony and I remembered seeing her in the crowd along with Pete and Phyllis. "Oh yeah, I saw her at the welcoming ceremony. How'd she get sick so quickly?" I asked.

"Well, I'm not entirely sure. Maybe someone sneezed or coughed in her direction. But I'm sure she'll be right as rain in no time, you know most colds don't last very long." He said. True, most colds go away within a few days, but I thought it would be best for myself if I did not use the post office until Pelly got better.

I was going to ask Pete how things work at the post office, but I figured it out on my own pretty quickly. Phyllis and Pelly run the counter, taking in mail and packages from townsfolk and from out of town, and Pete is the mailman. Pete was a nice guy, but I was going to have to cut the conversation short, to go see the rest of town. "I'm sure Pelly will get better too. I should go now, I still have a some places to see. I'll see you later, Pete." I said.

"Oh, sure, take care." Pete said. He then went to counter, did a quick hop over it and went into the back room of the post office, just as he was closing the door, I could here him say, "Hi Phyllis." before it closed completely.

I left the post office and immediately headed for that little shack I saw yesterday, the sign read "Nookling's Junction" and I remember Tom saying that his nephew's run a small store here, but I didn't think he meant this small. I went inside the tiny shop and was greeted by the twins in unison saying, "Welcome." I had a quick look around as the store was not very big, and all I saw was a chair, a tall lamp, some outdoor equipment, I did not want to rude, but this barely counted as a store. One of the twins walked up to me while the other one was writing stuff down on a clipboard, "Hi, nice to see you here Robert, is there anything I can help you with?" the little guy asked.

A couple of questions came to mind, but I never asked, such as, "Are you Timmy, or Tommy? Why are you running a store inside of a shed? Why are you two running it at such a young age? It's the middle August, don't you have to go to school? Are you making any kind of profit? Does Tom help you in anyway?" I felt like those were all reasonable questions, but I asked, "How do you run this store?"

He then said, "Well, what you see is what you get. We're a small store, but we manage, we rotate our inventory every day to attract customers and if we make enough money, our uncle will help us make the store bigger, so we can sell even more stuff."

I thought the idea of the store getting bigger would be good, so I decided to buy something. "I'd like to buy something then, if it'll help your store." I said.

The little guy looked happy as he said, "Great. Let me recommend an item for you." He grabbed a shovel then said to me, "I recommend this shovel for two reasons. Firstly: A shovel is very useful for all kinds of things, so it's more of a hassle not to own one. Second: This shovel can fold in half, making it easy to carry." He then pressed a button near the middle of the of the shovel and it folded in half.

I thought that was pretty cool, I never saw a folding shovel before, and since I said I would buy something, I decided to buy that, "Okay. How much is it?" I asked.

He then said, "It's five hundred bells." I took out my wallet took out the necessary amount and handed it to him. He took the bells and put them in his pocket while handing me the shovel as well. I put the shovel in my back pocket and he said, "Thanks."

I then said, "You're welcome and thanks for the shovel. I should be going now, I have a little bit more of Seascape to see."

The little guy then said, "Alright, see you around and please come again." I then left the store and had only one place of interest to visit, Able Sisters, the clothing store that Annalise told me about. It was a nice two story brick building, although it did not look like anyone was using the second floor.

There were two doors as the front entrances, one had a shirt on its window, and the other had a bow on it. I opened the door with the shirt and when I entered the shop, a blue hedgehog almost ran into me with how fast she was to greet me. "Hi, welcome! Hey, you're the mayor! Cool! Feel free to look around and let me know if you need anything." She said, in a peppy way.

I looked around the shop and saw a lot shirts, dresses and a large sewing machine in use with someone behind it. I then said to the hedgehog. "I'm here to meet you and your sisters. You can call me Robert, and you must be Sable. Right?"

She laughed and said, "Nope, one letter off. I'm Mable. My sister Sable is over there on the sewing machine. Hey, since you're here to meet us, let me get my other sister for you, wait just a moment." Mable then ran off to the other side of the store to get her sister.

Whilst Mable went off to get her sister I went to go say hi to Sable. She was behind a pretty big sewing machine and looked at it with complete determination, she was so focused on the her sewing, I do not think that she even noticed that I was standing right next to her. I tried talking to her, "Hello," I said, "my name's Robert." But I she did not respond. I tried talking again, "Umm. Hello?" I said and this time I actually got a response.

Sable said, "I'm very busy right now." She said in shy voice and continued sewing a very nice shirt.

I wanted to try to talk her one more time, but I heard some footsteps coming my way and looked to see Mable coming towards me with another hedgehog that looked a bit like Sable, only wearing fancier clothes. "Here you are Robert, I see you met Sable, now meet my other sister, Labelle." Mable then tried gently pushed Labelle a little closer to me and Labelle gave her a glare that made her stop. Labelle then looked at me and back to Mable said,

"Mable, when you said we had a high-profile customer that wanted to meet us, I thought you meant a celebrity, or Gracie. The mayor of a town this small hardly counts." I was a little offended by that, but it was not like she was wrong, just rude. "Still, I suppose in a town this small, it's better if everyone knows everyone, so I guess it's nice to meet you, I'm Labelle." She added.

I was a bit surprised with what she said, I thought I was going to have to deal with another Phyllis. "That's a nice way to think." I said, "My name's Robert and it's nice to meet you too. So what's it like living in Seascape, any advice?" I asked.

Mable then said, rather loudly, "I have some advice! Why don't you buy a sweater? It's getting close to September, which means it's nearly winter. So why not buy seasonally appropriate clothes ahead of time? Or, you could buy some shorts and a nice flower shirt and enjoy this beach weather while it lasts! Oh wait! How about a nice tailored suit? You are the mayor, you should look the part and Sable can make you a nice suit in a heartbeat! Or maybe you'd like..."

Before she could say anything else, Sable spoke up, "Mable, please stop. Let him pick what he wants to buy for himself." She said as she was still sewing. Mable looked at Sable and then crossed her arms like an angry child would do.

Labelle then said, "Well, you already have a job, you're meeting the townsfolk, so I guess socially, you're fine." She put her hand on her chin and glanced at the floor, thinking about something, then she said, "Aside from the fact the you should get a suit, if don't already have one, the only thing I think of is: Don't be a sore loser. Whenever there's a holiday or special event, or even if we just need to fill up some free time, people here in Seascape will play a game or have a contest. So don't get too upset if you lose from time to time, unlike Mable over here." She said with a sly smile while looking at Mable.

Mable then got a bit defensive and said, "I am not a sore loser!" As she stomped her foot on the floor.

"Then don't flip over the chessboard when you lose." Labelle said, with a small chuckle.

Mable got even madder and said, "I would have won, if I had remembered how those horsie pieces moved!"

Labelle looked back to me and said, "You should go, when she gets it takes a while for her to calm down."

I looked at Mable who was staring down Labelle like a hawk, then looked backed at Labelle and said, "Okay, I'll be heading off then." I walked past them, to the door and was just about to leave the store when I suddenly remembered something, "Oh yeah, I just remembered, Annalise says, hi."

Labelle then said, "Nice to hear from her on her day off. Bye Robert, come back soon." I left the shop and I could hear some more yelling coming from Mable, it sounded a bit like a child throwing a tantrum, and one that any child would get over in a few hours, so I decided not to mind it.

That was the last business on Main Street, so there were only a few people left in town to meet and with Main Street not really being very busy, I guessed that they were all just wandering around town, so I headed for the stairs to look for them.

\- Thank you for reading this chapter, please leave a review if you'd like. -


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10: Hide and seek.**

I was back at the more empty part of town and I headed for the plaza to see if anybody was there, luckily there was, it was the orange squirrel that was there when I first arrived in Seascape. I she was just sitting on the edge of the plant box looking she was waiting for someone, so I decided to introduce myself while she was waiting. "Hello." I said as I was walking towards her, "My name's Robert."

She looked at me after I said hello and her eyes widened a bit and she said, "Oh my goodness, it's the mayor! Hi, I'm Sally, it's nice to meet you, I liked your speech, as short as it was."

"Thanks, I tried my best. So what are you doing? Waiting for someone?" I asked

"Yes, I'm just waiting for some of my friends to get here, we're going to play a game. You can stick around and play with us if you'd want." She then scooted over to the side of the plant box even though there was enough room for me to sit next to her to begin with.

"Sure, sounds like fun." I said as i sat down next to her. "So who are we waiting for?" I asked.

Sally then said, "We're waiting for Tangy and Grizzly, we're going to play hide and seek. I'm sure they'll surprised to see that you're going to be playing with us." Sally then looked around to see if her friends were there yet. She then looked back at me and said, "So how's life for you here so far?"

I thought about it for a moment or two, then I said, "It's been interesting, I can say that. I never thought I'd be a mayor of any town, I got the job before I even got a house, and I've spent most of my day meeting as many people as I can. I think I'm going to like it here."

Sally smile and said, "Glad to know that. You know, most people in town have lived here for awhile now, so if you need any advice for living in Seascape, feel free to ask, I'm sure we'll be able to help." Sally looked around one more time and then she said, "Oh, there they are. Tangy, Grizzly, over here!"

Tangy waved at us, then started to skip towards us, reaching us first, while Grizzly just walked over a normal pace. While Grizzly was just a plain looking bear, albeit with a grumpy expression and some blue in his ears, Tangy was a little strange. She wore a large leaf on her head and her fur had a strange pattern to it, making her look like an orange.

As Tangy was the first to arrive, she was also the first to speak, "Hey, Sally! Love your shirt! I see you brought the mayor with you." Tangy then looked at me and said, "Nice to meet you, I'm Tangy. So are you going to play with us? Hide and seek is always better with more people."

"Yeah, I'm going to play and it's nice to meet you too Tangy." Then Grizzly finally walked over and I said to him, "It's nice to meet you too, Grizzly. I'm Robert."

Grizzly then said, "I guess it's nice to meet you too, although I thought our mayor would be a little older than you." He said, in a rude tone.

Sally then spoke up, "Hey, Grizzly, be nice. Mayor Tortimer, picked him out himself, so show him at least a little respect." I did not know that the guy who never showed up, was picked out by the previous mayor, I could understand why Isabelle wanted me to be the mayor a little more.

Grizzly looked a little shocked by Sally and he said, "Alright, alright, jeez. Sorry Mr. Mayor, no offence, you know?" I was not angry with him to begin with, I was sure that most people do not usually see mayors, as twenty-somethings with no experience.

Sally then stood up and said, "Good, I'm glad you apologized." She said in a nice tone. "Alright, now that we're all here let's play some hide and seek!." She then pointed at me and said, "Okay, Robert, since you're the newest here, you can be the seeker, while the rest of us hide. Oh yeah, here are the rules: We won't hide indoors and we won't hide anywhere in Main Street."

I then stood up and said, "Okay, simple enough, I guess I'll close my eyes and start counting." I was about to do just that, but then Tangy suddenly spoke up saying,

"Oh, wait! One more thing." She then took a looked a small watch from her pocket and tossed it to me, I caught it as she said, "That's a timer, we like see how fast we can find each other, so set the timer for thirty minutes, then count to thirty, and when you're done counting start the timer and start looking."

I set the timer for thirty minutes and then said, "Okay, I'm set, Now I'll start counting, so you guys start hiding." I closed my eyes and began to count, "One, two, three…" I could hear their footsteps rush off the cobblestone in various directions while I counted. It was not long until I finished counting, "Twentynine. Thirty!" I immediately press a button on the timer to start its countdown. I look around and I see that there was a slope at the top of the cliff face that lead to the beach and thought that maybe someone hiding down there. I quickly ran down the slope and on the beach. I kept up a light running pace as I searched around the beach, there was no one there, but I found another slope near the south end of the beach that lead back up the cliff.

I checked the timer and saw that running across the beach ate up 7 minutes of my time, I start jogging instead of running, because I did not want to tire myself out too quickly. I start checking behind every tree I see, but nobody was hiding any of them, I passed by one of the trees and I heard its leaves rustle, but there wasn't any wind blowing. Feeling a little suspicious, I looked up into the tree and I saw an orange, fluffy tail, that quickly pulled away into the tree. Knowing who it was I immediately shouted, "I saw you, Sally!"

I then heard her say "Aww man, I thought you'd never find me here." while still in the tree. She then dropped from the branch and landed safely on her feet. "Well you found me, but good luck if you haven't found the other two." She laughed playfully.

"Oh, I'll find them." I said with a bit of confidence in my voice and then I took off running again, looking for Grizzly and Tangy. I ran for a little bit, before I stopped to catch my breath, I still looked behind every tree I passed by, I then came across someone's house facing the south cliff side, it had a nice view of the ocean. I noticed on the side of the house there was a large box. I looked in the box and was a little disappointed to find it empty, I thought for sure that someone would be hiding in it. I then looked around the front of the house and I found Grizzly, sitting on a bench and reading a book. "Oh, I found you, I guess…" I said, in an awkward tone, I was wondering if he even wanted to play.

"Yep, you found me." Grizzly said in a plain tone, he put his book down stood up and said, "Well, good luck finding the others, meet us back at the plaza, when you find all of us, or when time your time runs out. I'll see you there." he said and tried to smile, which came off a little scarier then when I try practice smiling in front of a mirror.

"Okay, I'll see you there too." I said, as I went to go look for Tangy. I checked the timer and saw that I had about fifteen minutes left, so I started walking around at a pretty fast pace, looking for Tangy. I looked for a while, with no sign of her, I looked at the timer and saw that I had five minutes left. I was just about out of places to look, I headed for the northern part of town and I saw pair of ears poking out from behind a message board by the train station. I looked behind the board and I found Tangy, although she was asleep, I guess I took too long looking for her. "Hey Tangy, wake up" I said a little loudly.

Tangy's eyes went wide open as she woke up and she jumped a little as well, I guess I startled her. "Oh, woah, hey, you found me. Good job." She said as she was waking up. "Did you find the others?" She asked sounding more awake.

I nodded as I said, "Yeah, let's head back to the plaza." Tangy and I head back to the plaza, it was a short walk and I saw Sally and Grizzly, waiting there. As I walked up to them, I said, "Hey guys, I found Tangy, looks like I win." I said with a small grin on my face. "Oh I almost forgot." I turned around and took the timer from my pocket and gave it back to Tangy, "Here, this is yours." I said, as she took it and put it back in her pocket.

Sally and Grizzly then stood up and and Sally said with a smile, "Yeah, you won, good job, Robert. Maybe next time you can hide. Here's a little prize for winning." Sally then took out fifty bells and handed them to me.

"Oh, I don't think I can accept money for just a small game of hide and seek. You can take it back, Sally." I said offering the bells back to her.

Sally then lowered my hand down and said, "No, no, keep it, everyone gets something when they win a game here. Just last week, I won a chair from Joey when I beat him at bug catching."

I put the bells in my pocket and said, "Well, okay, thank you." as I said that it suddenly struck me that I finally met everyone Seascape, it took a little longer than I thought though. I looked at my watch and saw that it was a little after five, I then said to the small group, "I had fun, I hope I can play with you guys again sometime, maybe we can play a board game or something." I said as a friendly offer.

Tangy then said, "That sounds fun, I'll be sure to take you up on that offer and I'll also be sure to bring Mr. Grumpy-Pants over here." she smiled cheekily and poked Grizzly in the stomach with her elbow, while looking at him.

Grizzly then took a step away from Tangy and he said, "Yeah, that'd be nice, I'll bring snacks or something." He had this nonchalant look to him, but I could tell something was bugging him, maybe it was Tangy, she did seem to be getting too close to him.

I then said, "Cool, maybe we can do that sometime after my house gets built. I should go now, it was nice meeting you guys." I said as I waved goodbye. The rest of my day I spent wandering around Seascape, taking in the sights and saying hi to anyone that walked by. It is a very lovely town, I was glad that I decided to move here, just for the location alone. By the time I was done sightseeing, it was dark and most of the stores were getting ready to close for the night. I went back to my tent and laid down on the floor, this time not using my suitcase a pillow, as I drifted off to sleep. As I slept, I had a strange dream that I was being moved.

\- Thank you for reading this chapter. Please leave a review, if you'd like. -


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